Ohio State Offers New Student E-mail Services

Posted: February 27, 2009

Starting April 6, The Ohio State University will begin to offer students a new option for e-mail and other online communication services at no cost to the university or students.

The new system, called Buckeye Mail, is a partnership between the university and Microsoft, using Windows Live service. The offering is in response to students’ requests to provide an e-mail system that offers a richer feature set and larger mailboxes than the Office of Information Technology (OIT) is currently providing.

Talks between student government officials, Office of the Chief Information Officer, and Student Life led to the partnership with Microsoft to provide e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging, and other applications to students. The partnership allows students to access this popular commercial service while still maintaining their traditional OSU e-mail addresses. Students will be able to continue receiving mail at their lastname.#@osu.edu addresses.

Eligibility
All currently enrolled undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at the Columbus and regional campuses will be eligible for Buckeye Mail accounts. Buckeye Mail accounts for past graduates and alumni are expected to be available during the second half of 2009.

Buckeye Mail accounts will not be available for faculty and staff.

Rollout
Beginning spring quarter, all newly admitted students will automatically be assigned Buckeye Mail accounts. Currently enrolled students will be able to opt-in to the new Buckeye Mail system through a phased-in approach by alphabetical order of students’ last names (alphabet ranges to be determined) starting April 6. An early adopter’s group of approximately 500 students (residents in Morrison Tower) will begin March 9.

Students will have the option of selecting Buckeye Mail or any other commercial account (Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Excite, Hotmail, etc.), but they must choose and forward their @osu.edu mail to that provider by June 30.

OIT expects to complete signup for all student accounts by June 30 and those who have not made a choice to use Buckeye Mail or another provider will be automatically enrolled in Buckeye Mail. On December 31, all remaining e-mail in student OSU central server accounts will be deleted so they must forward any mail they wish to keep to their new accounts before that date.

Most importantly, to ensure e-mail is forwarded to a student’s designated mail service, faculty and staff should continue to communicate using the lastname.#@osu.edu address.

Benefits
Benefits to the university include the ability to provide enhanced IT student services, server space currently allocated to student e-mail will be freed for academic and administrative use, and savings of an estimated $70,000 per year in resources that OIT will reallocate to other projects and activities.

Buckeye Mail benefits for students include:

• Significantly increased e-mail storage (10GB as compared to current 15MB)
• 5GB of Office Workspace storage for shared project work
• 25GB of storage space on Sky Drive that allows access from any location with Web connection
• Calendar feature for personal and student involvement use (record appointments, share calendars, schedule meetings)
• Recognition and credibility of the @buckeyemail.osu.edu address—particularly valuable in conducting official university business or communicating with professors who may not recognize non-OSU addresses
• Ability to synchronize contacts and calendars with Windows Mobile and iPhone systems
• Anti-spam and virus protection

While students are enrolled at Ohio State, advertisements will not appear in the OSU-customized system. After students graduate, they will have the option of keeping the account, at which time ads will appear.

The agreement prohibits Microsoft from selling student e-mail addresses to third party vendors and from selling advertising on the Ohio State e-mail web site. Executive sponsors are the offices of the Chief Information Officer and Student Life.

Additional details regarding Buckeye Mail and the opt-in procedures will be provided in the coming weeks. OIT’s IT Service Desk will provide help for Buckeye Mail accounts on the web at 8help.osu.edu/buckeyemail, by e-mail at 8help@osu.edu, or by calling 614-688-HELP (4357).